96 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



propriated 150,000 for this work; last year |5o,ooo, and it has lately ap- 

 propriated |75,ooo for the work of the coming year. They are doing 

 everything possible to disseminate a knowledge of this insect among the 

 people, having published a special report, with colored figures, of the 

 insect in its various stages. Prof. Fernald, in his interesting account, says 

 that there is a statement in the second volume of the "American Ento- 

 mologist," published in 1870, " that only a year ago the larva of a certain 

 Owlet moth (//. dispar), which is a great pest in Europe, both to fruit and 

 forest trees, was accidentally introduced by a Massachusetts entomologist 

 into New England." He then gives an interesting account of its distri- 

 bution, food-plants, enemies, how to destroy them, etc. This method of 

 introduction should be a warning to entomologists. We have had sent 

 to us from foreign countries living injurious insects packed in paste-board 

 boxes which were partly crushed in the mails and in the best possible 

 condition for naturalization. 



Mr. Chas. Durv, in vol. xiv, p. 183 of the " Cincinnati Journal of Natu- 

 ral History," gives an interesting account of the inhabitants of a field 

 mouse nest: " I went to an old orchard, and" under the first log rolled over 

 I discovered a nest, and secured a mouse as she rushed out. She proved 

 to be the 'short-tailed meadow shrew,' Blarina brevicauda (.Say). I 

 lifted the nest into the sifting-net and sifted it over a sheet of white paper, 

 and was overwhelmed at the result. The fine debris was a jumping, 

 crawling mass of insect life: beetles, fleas, ticks and larvae. There were 

 over a hundred large, vicious-looking fleas, most energetic biters. How 

 the mouse could live in such a den is a mystery. There were 107 Lep- 

 tinus testaceiis. The other beetles associated with the Leptinus were 

 Staphylinidae, or ' rove' beetles of species new to me." 



Mr. Thos. E. Bean contemplates collecting during the Summer of 1892 

 on the mountains of the central range in the vicinity of Laggan and 

 Hector (Can. Pacif. Railway), at summit of Kicking Horse Pass, and in 

 the most accessible part of the Bow Valley. He will give particular at- 

 tention to alpine work, and collect all orders of insects. 



In the March number of the News, on page 70, there appeared a short 

 article put in by the printer to fill out the page, and he neglected to label 

 it "Newspaper Entomology." This describes a most curious hybrid 

 insect (probably hybrid between a tarantula and a scorpion) which stings 

 and bites with one end and stings with its tail at the other. If it were not 

 stated that the insect was a spider we would think the Doctor specialist 

 who treated the sting or bite, had a scorpion in his mind. It is very 

 doubtful whether a scorpion can sting itself in the back as the sting points 

 the wrong way for this manoeuver. We see many curious insects de- 

 scribed in the daily press, and one we described in the News turned out 

 to be a new genus and species {Electridia tomfoolery ensis), vol. ii, p. 54. 



Mr. Philip Laurent, of Philadelphia, thinks of going to Colorado on 

 a collecting trip, during the coming season. 



